Please click HERE to download the 32 page Guide to UK Political Blogging, which will be distributed at the three Party Conferences. It includes the Top 100 Political Blogs from page 4-8 (I should point out that Recess Monkey should be Number 13!), as well as the Top 100 different party blogs already posted on here over the last couple of days.Also included are articles by Adam Boulton, Francis Maude, Ben Brogan, Kevin Maguire, Guido Fawkes, Lynne Featherstone and Tim Montgomerie.
I want to thank APCO for having the foresight to sponsor the publication! I'll be handing out copies at the LibDem Bloggers bash tonight. If any Labour bloggers can help with distribution at the Labour conference please let me know. If you're not going to the conferences but would like a paper copy rather than just a PDF click HERE.
Congratulations Iain, you must have put an enormous amount of hard work and effort into this.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention, Iain. Next time any of my colleagues give me a blank look when I say the word "blog", I'll know where to send them...
ReplyDeleteA job well done, Iain. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteThe guide is a great resource. Well done Iain ! And, pretty pleased to be ranked 28 by you in the Lib Dem 'Top 100' category !
ReplyDeleteI think it now needs Labour to come up with an equivalent of Lib Dem Voice or Conservative.Home - both benchmarks of excellence.
BTW Iain, do you know of any good Green Party blogs ?
Thanks again Iain and well done on the guide - it looks great.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for my inclusion. Who'd have thought I'd be the 69th best political blogger in the country - certainly not me!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Cheers Iain. This makes up for years of angst not being picked for the netball team at school.
ReplyDeleteA very good job. It must have been a task worthy of Hercules to rank the lib dem blogs. :)
ReplyDeleteTo echo Barrie Wood - a note of constructive criticism would be to have adapted the Lib Dem list to be "Lib Dem and third parties"
There are some excellent Green Party blogs - especially my own. :)
In your wildest dreams, Iain
ReplyDeleteHee! #55 on the Lib Dem list is mightily amused! I'm going to tell all my friends!
ReplyDeleteJust how many photographs are there of yourself in your guide to blogging? And I thought blogs themselves were the vanity publishing tool....
ReplyDelete2 actually!
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose there's a text version? Adobe PDF and my computer get along like the Republican National Committee and the Taliban. I've already crashed the thing four times trying to open the lists.
ReplyDeleteIt obviously is about vanity - devise a highly subjective grading scheme which just happens to put your own blog in the top three of the top one hundred... and hey presto, instant fame and acclaim!
ReplyDeleteBut the one thing our Iain does not do is put up a publicly accessible hit counter - noooooo. Mere mortals might see how his blog ranks in the real world of actual hits - the only true measure of popularity. And that would never do.
Then, our Iain was never very good at popularity contests that weren't rigged... or did I get it wrong? Did you actually win an election and become an MP?
Thanks for the mention, Iain. It's a great resource.
ReplyDeleteRichard, I had always taken you seriously, but your comments do you no favours. I was quite open in describing how I marked the different blogs. This whole excercise is about getting blogs talked about and so far it has been very successful. I couldn't give a flying f*** what you think the reasons were, but if you seriously doubt my hit figures, go to Hitwise.co.uk and you'll have independent verification. I use Extreme Tracking to track my hits.
ReplyDeleteCheap point about elections. Don't recall you ever winning one either.
You have a very good blog, which I link to and hat-tip from time to time.
All I can think is that you got out of bed the wrong side today.
Haha I see Pickled Politics is ranked number 10 in LibDem blogs! Must have a word with Sunny about that, didn't know we're a LibDem blog (I can't be partisan because of who I work for)!
ReplyDeleteCheers for the Top 10 placing Iain - full review currently running on my blog.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Richard's comment about the grading scheme which "just happens to put your own blog in the top three of the top one hundred," oh do grow up. Most people would take the view that Iain's blog ought to be in the Top One (as Brian Clough might have said) let alone the Top Three.
Are you always this patronising, or did you take lessons?
ReplyDeleteJust who the hell are you to sit in judgement on the efforts of hundreds of people and decide on a ranking, according to your own, arbitrary, unpublished and highly subjective scheme - and then justify it as "an exercise to get blogs talked about"?
Blogs were doing very nicely before you came along, Iain, and will continue to do so with ot without you.
This strikes me this as more like an exercise in getting Iain Dale talked about.
I know I'm going to cause problems for you now Iain but last night I had a Scottish Nationalist congratulate me on being on of the top 100 Lib Dem Blogs. But they were a teensy bit upset that you did not cover the other parties.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there is another Top 100 including the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Northern Ireland, Greens, UKIP et al. Maybe next time.
Richard, obviously I should have come to you for lessons in being patronising. You really are making yourself look quite ridiculous. Helen Szamuely must have the patience of a saint.
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog. But I like some others more. Since when was that a crime? Everyone who compiles such a list would come up with a different result. Isn't that the great thing about choice?
Stephen Glenn, yes, I didn't include many Green/SNP/Welsh/UKIP etc mainly because I couldn't find them. i did ask people to suggest blogs for inclusion but very few suggested any fringe party blogs. I agree that next time there should be more.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your revealing comment... Iain Dale's "top blogs" should read "blogs Iain Dale likes", in order of his preference, ranked according to how he feels at the time.
ReplyDeleteWhoopee! Pity for you elections aren't conducted on the same basis.
Iain
ReplyDeleteReally good stuff. Thanks.
One question..
fzt
Nick Robinson - #63
Adam Boulton - #12
How come ? Whats our man not doing as well as Adam ?
(disclosure - I work at the BBC)
Dear Richard,
ReplyDeletePlease shut up!
C4 BA (Hons.)
Via Rachel:
ReplyDeleteThe Kos has picked up on it too, expect a surge in traffic: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/18/101053/376
Nice graphs, Richard. It's great to find a grown man who really cares about this stuff. Trouble is, I'm not sure your popularity among Muslim-obsessed racists, Hoosier gun nuts and bedroom coup-plotters really counts. Not really.
ReplyDeleteplenty more Jarndyce... How many hits do you get? Your hit rate registers as a flat line on the graph and, of course, your hit counter is not publicly accessible... just like Iain's.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure it's not another of your "gut feelings", Richard?
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha. Have some more rope, Richard, this gets funnier and funnier. For starters, I'm very occasionally here, hardly ever there anymore, and much more importantly, I don't care how many hits I get or whether I'm a few places below where I demand to be placed in one person's obviously subjective little chart. You've blown a gasket over it. Never mind the sanity, feel the width, eh?
ReplyDelete*offers handbags, toys, prams*
ReplyDeleteRichard,
ReplyDeleteTry http://www.sissyfight.com/
also highly entertaining stuff.
Thankyou Iain for raising the profile of UK political bloggers, of various shades of opinion.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you obsessed with ranking lists, then comparing Iain's top 100 blogs with the number of Bloglines syndication feed aggregator subscribers, is quite interesting.
See Top UK political blogs
Many thanks for this very informative and usefull publication Iain, you done well boy!
ReplyDeleteSome pretty good articles from the heavyweights in there too, I certainly didn't expect to find my own blog in your list, so I will have to work hard to stay!
Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!
Very useful, sir - thanks for doing this.
ReplyDeleteNot too sure what to make of this guide, Iain. It makes no mention at all of Samizdata, one of the oldest British blogs with a large hit-rate - it will be 5 years old in November - and has a fairly large audience. Oh well, mustn't be bitter!
ReplyDeleteGreat job, thanks! Any ideas about repeating the exercise for European political - English language - blogs? There are quite a few of us, just more scattered and without a natural community when it comes to European issues.
ReplyDeleteA little light self promotion. For a couple of years now I've been running the UK Political Blog aggregator at
ReplyDeletehttp://www.voidstar.com/ukpoliblog I'm now up to 750 entries.
Enjoy.
Richard? My stats (too low to be worth pushing) show that the old place gets approx three times as hits with you as a referral than I get from Iain, but then, I'm more prominent in your blogroll. However, Iain made it clear at all points during the build up to this that it would be entirely subjective. Given one of the judgements is aesthetic, and you're using one of my least liked standard blogger templates?
ReplyDeleteMeh, I care not.
Iain? It's not just the Monkey you forgot to grade from your blogroll y'know. I mean, I know I was busy in the summer at work (tourist industry) so posting was quiet, but still, you blogrolled me way before you got big y'git...
Then again, I've moved now, new place (using Wordpress) is much easier to use. Heartily recommend Wordpress over Blogger, it's so easy to use...
Still, mission accomplished, the coverage blog writers are getting from the conference reporters is very heartening.
Overall, well done. You missed me out completely, you missed Samizdata, the Monkey and a few others, you ranked some highly I think are awful, and you put Millenium almost at the bottom of the Lib Dems, which is disgraceful, but it's a nice little exercise.
Richard? It's just a bit of fun and publicity, why shouldn't the guy who put in all the work get a bit of a plug?
Number 35, eh? I am simply abject with gratitude...no, honestly, I haven't the slightest shame.
ReplyDeleteyes, I didn't include many Green/SNP/Welsh/UKIP etc mainly because I couldn't find them. i did ask people to suggest blogs for inclusion but very few suggested any fringe party blogs. I agree that next time there should be more
ReplyDeleteWell, I've taken it on myself to 'do' the green blogs out there - but require help! At The Daily (Maybe) I've started compiling those I can find - in the right hand column - I'm upto 60 blogs so far - if anyone knows of any UK green blogs that I haven't snapped up yet please do let me know.
It is a shame that feminist, anarchist, far left blogs etc all got missed out - but you can't do everything. I'll have a go at filling one gap, wooo, it's hard work though.
ReplyDeletebastard
I feel really sorry for Richard North. It must be awful, having armed gunman hold your family hostage and demand that you not publish your own opinions of which blogs are best and then distribute that publication at party conferences. Thus the poor man finds his own importance entirely at the mercy of Iain Dale. And then Dale betrays him!
ReplyDeleteIs there a chance to update link with pdf?
ReplyDeletepdf
I could not find the pdf being available in any other place.
Thanks.
Thank you for your information about "EXCLUSIVE: Guide to UK Political Blogging Released - Includes Top 100 UK Blogs". Bank Blogging
ReplyDelete